Method and system for authentication in a heterogeneous federated environment

ABSTRACT

A method is presented in which federated domains interact within a federated environment. Domains within a federation can initiate federated single-sign-on operations for a user at other federated domains. A point-of-contact server within a domain relies upon a trust proxy within the domain to manage trust relationships between the domain and the federation. Trust proxies interpret assertions from other federated domains as necessary. Trust proxies may have a trust relationship with one or more trust brokers, and a trust proxy may rely upon a trust broker for assistance in interpreting assertions.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001] The present application is related to the following applicationswith a common assignee:

[0002] U.S. patent application Ser. No. (Attorney Docket NumberCH920020006), filed (TBD), titled “Efficient browser-based identitymanagement providing personal control and anonymity”;

[0003] U.S. patent application Ser. No. (Attorney Docket NumberAUS920020410US1), filed xx/xx/2002, titled “Method and System forProof-of-Possession Operations Associated with Authentication Assertionsin a Heterogeneous Federated Environment”;

[0004] U.S. patent application Ser. No. (Attorney Docket NumberAUS920020411US1), filed xx/xx/2002, titled “Local Architecture forFederated Heterogeneous System”;

[0005] U.S. patent application Ser. No. (Attorney Docket NumberAUS920020412US1), filed xx/xx/2002, titled “Method and System forAttribute Exchange in a Heterogeneous Federated Environment”;

[0006] U.S. patent application Ser. No. (Attorney Docket NumberAUS920020413US1), filed xx/xx/2002, titled “Method and System forAuthentication in a Heterogeneous Federated Environment”;

[0007] U.S. patent application Ser. No. (Attorney Docket NumberAUS920020461US1), filed xx/xx/2002, titled “Method and System forConsolidated Sign-off in a Heterogeneous Federated Environment”; and

[0008] U.S. patent application Ser. No. (Attorney Docket NumberAUS920020486US1), filed xx/xx/2002, titled “Method and System for NativeAuthentication Protocols in a Heterogeneous Federated Environment”.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0009] 1. Field of the Invention

[0010] The present invention relates to an improved data processingsystem and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for multicomputerdata transferring. Still more particularly, the present invention isdirected networked computer systems.

[0011] 2. Description of Related Art

[0012] Enterprises generally desire to provide authorized users withsecure access to protected resources in a user-friendly mannerthroughout a variety of networks, including the Internet. Althoughproviding secure authentication mechanisms reduces the risks ofunauthorized access to protected resources, the same authenticationmechanisms may become barriers to user interaction with the protectedresources. Users generally desire the ability to jump from interactingwith one application to another application without regard to theauthentication barriers that protect each particular system supportingthose applications.

[0013] As users get more sophisticated, they expect that computersystems coordinate their actions so that burdens on the user arereduced. These types of expectations also apply to authenticationprocesses. A user might assume that once he or she has beenauthenticated by some computer system, the authentication should bevalid throughout the user's working session, or at least for aparticular period of time, without regard to the various computerarchitecture boundaries that are almost invisible to the user.Enterprises generally try to fulfill these expectations in theoperational characteristics of their deployed systems, not only toplacate users but also to increase user efficiency, whether the userefficiency is related to employee productivity or customer satisfaction.

[0014] More specifically, with the current computing environment inwhich many applications have a Web-based user interface that isaccessible through a common browser, users expect more user-friendlinessand low or infrequent barriers to movement from one Web-basedapplication to another. In this context, users are coming to expect theability to jump from interacting with an application on one Internetdomain to another application on another domain without regard to theauthentication barriers that protect each particular domain. However,even if many systems provide secure authentication through easy-to-use,Web-based interfaces, a user may still be forced to reckon with multipleauthentication processes that stymie user access across a set ofdomains. Subjecting a user to multiple authentication processes in agiven time frame may significantly affect the user's efficiency.

[0015] Various techniques have been used to reduce authenticationburdens on users and computer system administrators. These techniquesare generally described as “single-sign-on” (SSO) processes because theyhave a common purpose: after a user has completed a sign-on operation,i.e. been authenticated, the user is subsequently not required toperform another authentication operation. Hence, the goal is that theuser would be required to complete only one authentication processduring a particular user session.

[0016] Such single-sign-on solutions have been successful whenimplemented within a given enterprise. However, the barriers that arepresented by multiple authentication processes or systems are becomingincreasingly common as more enterprises participate in e-commercemarketplaces or other collaborative endeavors connected by the Internet.Previous single-sign-on solutions between enterprises have been limitedto homogeneous environments in which there are pre-established businessagreements between participating enterprises. These business agreementsare used, in part, to establish trust and to limit and define howinformation is transferred in a secure manner between enterprises. Thesebusiness agreements also include technological agreements on rules onhow to translate, or map, user identities from one enterprise toanother, and how to transfer the information used to vouch for usersbetween participating enterprises.

[0017] In other words, previous single-sign-on solutions allow oneenterprise to trust an authentication assertion (along with the identityof the user provided in the assertion) produced by a differententerprise based on the pre-negotiated or pre-configured agreements.Each distinct enterprise knows how to create and interpretauthentication assertions that can be understood by other enterprisesthat have exchanged similar agreements, such as enterprises within ane-commerce marketplace. These homogeneous environments are tightlycoupled because there is a deterministic relationship known by theenterprises for mapping the user identities across these systems. Thistight coupling is possible because of the business agreements that areused to establish the single-sign-on environment.

[0018] Although participating enterprises may cooperate withinhomogeneous environments by using these previous single-sign-onsolutions, these environments are restrictive in view of the need ordesire to interconnect multiple homogeneous environments, e.g.,interconnected e-commerce marketplaces. Therefore, it would beadvantageous to have methods and systems in which enterprises canprovide similar single-sign-on experiences to users in the absence ofpredetermined business and technical translation agreements betweenparticipating enterprises.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0019] A method, apparatus, system, and computer program product arepresented in which federated domains interact within a federatedenvironment. Domains within a federation are able to initiate federatedsingle-sign-on operations for a user at other federated domains. Apoint-of-contact server within a domain relies upon a trust proxy withinthe domain to manage trust relationships between the domain and thefederation. Trust proxies interpret assertions from other federateddomains as necessary. Trust proxies may have a trust relationship withone or more trust brokers, and a trust proxy may rely upon a trustbroker for assistance in interpreting assertions.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0020] The novel features believed characteristic of the invention areset forth in the appended claims. The invention itself, furtherobjectives, and advantages thereof, will be best understood by referenceto the following detailed description when read in conjunction with theaccompanying drawings, wherein:

[0021]FIG. 1A depicts a typical network of data processing systems, eachof which may implement the present invention;

[0022]FIG. 1B depicts a typical computer architecture that may be usedwithin a data processing system in which the present invention may beimplemented;

[0023]FIG. 1C depicts a data flow diagram that illustrates a typicalauthentication process that may be used when a client attempts to accessa protected resource at a server;

[0024]FIG. 1D depicts a network diagram that illustrates a typicalWeb-based environment in which the present invention may be implemented;

[0025]FIG. 1E depicts a block diagram that illustrates an example of atypical online transaction that might require multiple authenticationoperations from a user;

[0026]FIG. 2A depicts a block diagram that illustrates the terminologyof the federated environment with respect to a transaction that isinitiated by a user to a first federated enterprise, which, in response,invokes actions at downstream entities within the federated environment;

[0027]FIG. 2B depicts a block diagram that illustrates the integrationof pre-existing systems at a given domain with some of the federatedarchitecture components of the present invention in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention;

[0028]FIG. 2C depicts a block diagram that illustrates a federatedarchitecture in accordance with an implementation of the presentinvention;

[0029]FIG. 2D depicts a block diagram that illustrates an exemplary setof trust relationships between federated domains using trust proxies anda trust broker in accordance with the present invention;

[0030]FIG. 3A depicts a flowchart that illustrates a generalized processat an issuing domain for creating an assertion within a federatedenvironment;

[0031]FIG. 3B depicts a flowchart that illustrates a generalized processat a relying domain for tearing down an assertion;

[0032]FIG. 3C depicts a flowchart that illustrates a specific processfor pushing an assertion from an issuing domain to a relying domain inresponse to a user action at the issuing domain;

[0033]FIG. 3D depicts a flowchart that illustrates a specific processfor pushing an assertion from an issuing domain to a relying domain inresponse to the issuing domain actively intercepting an outgoing requestto the relying domain;

[0034]FIG. 3E depicts a flowchart that illustrates a pull model in whicha relying domain requests any required assertions for a user from anissuing domain while attempting to satisfy a resource request that wasreceived by the relying domain from the requesting user; and

[0035]FIG. 4 depicts a block diagram that illustrates a federatedenvironment that supports federated single-sign-on operations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0036] In general, the devices that may comprise or relate to thepresent invention include a wide variety of data processing technology.Therefore, as background, a typical organization of hardware andsoftware components within a distributed data processing system isdescribed prior to describing the present invention in more detail.

[0037] With reference now to the figures, FIG. 1A depicts a typicalnetwork of data processing systems, each of which may implement thepresent invention. Distributed data processing system 100 containsnetwork 101, which is a medium that may be used to providecommunications links between various devices and computers connectedtogether within distributed data processing system 100. Network 101 mayinclude permanent connections, such as wire or fiber optic cables, ortemporary connections made through telephone or wireless communications.In the depicted example, server 102 and server 103 are connected tonetwork 101 along with storage unit 104. In addition, clients 105-107also are connected to network 101. Clients 105-107 and servers 102-103may be represented by a variety of computing devices, such asmainframes, personal computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), etc.Distributed data processing system 100 may include additional servers,clients, routers, other devices, and peer-to-peer architectures that arenot shown.

[0038] In the depicted example, distributed data processing system 100may include the Internet with network 101 representing a worldwidecollection of networks and gateways that use various protocols tocommunicate with one another, such as LDAP (Lightweight Directory AccessProtocol), TCP/IP (Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), HTTP(HyperText Transport Protocol), etc. Of course, distributed dataprocessing system 100 may also include a number of different types ofnetworks, such as, for example, an intranet, a local area network (LAN),or a wide area network (WAN). For example, server 102 directly supportsclient 109 and network 110, which incorporates wireless communicationlinks. Network-enabled phone 111 connects to network 110 throughwireless link 112, and PDA 113 connects to network 110 through wirelesslink 114. Phone 111 and PDA 113 can also directly transfer data betweenthemselves across wireless link 115 using an appropriate technology,such as Bluetooth™ wireless technology, to create so-called personalarea networks or personal ad-hoc networks. In a similar manner, PDA 113can transfer data to PDA 107 via wireless communication link 116.

[0039] The present invention could be implemented on a variety ofhardware platforms and software environments. FIG. 1A is intended as anexample of a heterogeneous computing environment and not as anarchitectural limitation for the present invention.

[0040] With reference now to FIG. 1B, a diagram depicts a typicalcomputer architecture of a data processing system, such as those shownin FIG. 1A, in which the present invention may be implemented. Dataprocessing system 120 contains one or more central processing units(CPUs) 122 connected to internal system bus 123, which interconnectsrandom access memory (RAM) 124, read-only memory 126, and input/outputadapter 128, which supports various I/O devices, such as printer 130,disk units 132, or other devices not shown, such as a audio outputsystem, etc. System bus 123 also connects communication adapter 134 thatprovides access to communication link 136. User interface adapter 148connects various user devices, such as keyboard 140 and mouse 142, orother devices not shown, such as a touch screen, stylus, microphone,etc. Display adapter 144 connects system bus 123 to display device 146.

[0041] Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that thehardware in FIG. 1B may vary depending on the system implementation. Forexample, the system may have one or more processors, such as an Intel®Pentium®-based processor and a digital signal processor (DSP), and oneor more types of volatile and non-volatile memory. Other peripheraldevices may be used in addition to or in place of the hardware depictedin FIG. 1B. The depicted examples are not meant to imply architecturallimitations with respect to the present invention.

[0042] In addition to being able to be implemented on a variety ofhardware platforms, the present invention may be implemented in avariety of software environments. A typical operating system may be usedto control program execution within each data processing system. Forexample, one device may run a Unix® operating system, while anotherdevice contains a simple Java® runtime environment. A representativecomputer platform may include a browser, which is a well known softwareapplication for accessing hypertext documents in a variety of formats,such as graphic files, word processing files, Extensible Markup Language(XML), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Handheld Device Markup Language(HDML), Wireless Markup Language (WML), and various other formats andtypes of files. It should also be noted that the distributed dataprocessing system shown in FIG. 1A is contemplated as being fully ableto support a variety of peer-to-peer subnets and peer-to-peer services.

[0043] With reference now to FIG. 1C, a data flow diagram illustrates atypical authentication process that may be used when a client attemptsto access a protected resource at a server. As illustrated, the user ata client workstation 150 seeks access over a computer network to aprotected resource on a server 151 through the user's Web browserexecuting on the client workstation. A protected resource is identifiedby a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), or more generally, a UniformResource Identifier (URI), that can only be accessed by an authenticatedand authorized user. The computer network may be the Internet, anintranet, or other network, as shown in FIG. 1A or FIG. 1B, and servermay be a Web Application Server (WAS), a server application, a servletprocess, or the like.

[0044] The process is initiated when the user requests the protectedresource, such as a Web page within the domain “ibm.com” (step 152). TheWeb browser (or associated application or applet) generates an HTTPrequest message that is sent to the Web server that is hosting thedomain “ibm.com” (step 153). The server determines that it does not havean active session for the client (step 154), so the server requires theuser to perform an authentication process by sending the client sometype of authentication challenge (step 155). The authenticationchallenge may be in various formats, such as a Hypertext Markup Language(HTML) form. The user then provides the requested or requiredinformation (step 156), such as a user identifier and an associatedpassword, or the client may automatically return certain information.

[0045] The authentication response information is sent to the server(step 157), at which point the server authenticates the user or client(step 158), e.g., by retrieving previously submitted registrationinformation and matching the presented authentication information withthe user's stored information. Assuming the authentication issuccessful, an active session is established for the authenticated useror client.

[0046] The server then retrieves the requested Web page and sends anHTTP response message to the client (step 159). At that point, the usermay request another page within “ibm.com” (step 160) within the browserby clicking a hypertext link, and the browser sends another HTTP Requestto the server (step 161). At that point, the server recognizes that theuser has an active session (step 162), and the server sends therequested Web page back to the client in another HTTP response message(step 163). Although FIG. 1C depicts a typical prior art process, itshould be noted that other alternative session state managementtechniques may be depicted, such as using cookies to identify users withactive sessions, which may include using the same cookie that is used toprovide proof of authentication.

[0047] With reference now to FIG. 1D, a network diagram illustrates atypical Web-based environment in which the present invention may beimplemented. In this environment, a user of a browser 170 at client 171desires to access a protected resource on web application server 172 inDNS domain 173, or on web application server 174 in DNS domain 175.

[0048] In a manner similar to that shown in FIG. 1C, a user can requesta protected resource at one of many domains. In contrast to FIG. 1C,which shows only a single server at a particular domain, each domain inFIG. 1D has multiple servers. In particular, each domain may have anassociated authentication server 176 and 177.

[0049] In this example, after client 171 issues a request for aprotected resource at domain 173, web application server 172 determinesthat it does not have an active session for client 171, and it requeststhat authentication server 176 perform an appropriate authenticationoperation with client 171. Authentication server 176 communicates theresult of the authentication operation to web application server 172. Ifthe user (or browser 170 or client 171 on behalf of the user) issuccessfully authenticated, then web application server 172 establishesa session for client 171 and returns the requested protected resource.Typically, once the user is authenticated by the authentication server,a cookie may be set and stored in a cookie cache in the browser. FIG. 1Dis merely an example of one manner in which the processing resources ofa domain may be shared amongst multiple servers, particularly to performauthentication operations.

[0050] In a similar manner, after client 171 issues a request for aprotected resource at domain 175, authentication server 177 performs anappropriate authentication operation with client 171, after which webapplication server 174 establishes a session for client 171 and returnsthe requested protected resource. Hence, FIG. 1D illustrates that client171 may have multiple concurrent sessions in different domains yet isrequired to complete multiple authentication operations to establishthose concurrent sessions.

[0051] With reference now to FIG. 1E, a block diagram depicts an exampleof a typical online transaction that might require multipleauthentication operations from a user. Referring again to FIG. 1C andFIG. 1D, a user may be required to complete an authentication operationprior to gaining access to a controlled resource, as shown in FIG. 1C.Although not shown in FIG. 1C, an authentication manager may be deployedon server 151 to retrieve and employ user information that is requiredto authenticate a user. As shown in FIG. 1D, a user may have multiplecurrent sessions within different domains 173 and 175, and although theyare not shown in FIG. 1D, each domain may employ an authenticationmanager in place of or in addition to the authentication servers. In asimilar manner, FIG. 1E also depicts a set of domains, each of whichsupport some type of authentication manager. FIG. 1E illustrates some ofthe difficulties that a user may experience when accessing multipledomains that require the user to complete an authentication operationfor each domain.

[0052] User 190 may be registered at ISP domain 191, which may supportauthentication manager 192 that authenticates user 190 for the purposeof completing transactions with respect to domain 191. ISP domain 191may be an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that provides Internetconnection services, email services, and possibly other e-commerceservices. Alternatively, ISP domain 191 may be an Internet portal thatis frequently accessed by user 190.

[0053] Similarly, domains 193, 195, and 197 represent typical webservice providers. Government domain 193 supports authentication manager194 that authenticates users for completing various government-relatedtransactions. Banking domain 195 supports authentication manager 196that authenticates users for completing transactions with an onlinebank. E-commerce domain 197 supports authentication manager 198 thatauthenticates users for completing online purchases.

[0054] As noted previously, when a user attempts to move from one domainto another domain within the Internet or World Wide Web by accessingresources at the different domains, a user may be subjected to multipleuser authentication requests or requirements, which can significantlyslow the user's progress across a set of domains. Using FIG. 1E as anexemplary environment, user 190 may be involved in a complicated onlinetransaction with e-commerce domain 197 in which the user is attemptingto purchase an on-line service that is limited to users who are at least18 years old and who have a valid driver license, a valid credit card,and a U.S. bank account. This online transaction may involve domains191, 193, 195, and 197.

[0055] Typically, a user might not maintain an identity within eachdomain that participates in a typical online transaction. In thisexample, user 190 may have registered his or her identity with theuser's ISP, but to complete the online transaction, the user might alsobe required to authenticate to domains 193, 195, and 197. If each of thedomains does not maintain an identity for the user, then the user'sonline transaction may fail. Even if the user can be authenticated byeach domain, then it is not guaranteed that the different domains cantransfer information between themselves in order to complete the user'stransaction. For user 190 shown in FIG. 1E, there is no prior artenvironment that allows user 190 to authenticate to a first web site,e.g., ISP 191, and then transfer an authentication token to other webservice providers, such as domains 193, 195, and 197, for single-sign-onpurposes.

[0056] Given the preceding brief description of some current technology,the description of the remaining figures relates to federated computerenvironments in which the present invention may operate. Prior todiscussing the present invention in more detail, however, someterminology is introduced.

Terminology

[0057] The terms “entity” or “party” generally refers to anorganization, an individual, or a system that operates on behalf of anorganization, an individual, or another system. The term “domain”connotes additional characteristics within a network environment, butthe terms “entity”, “party”, and “domain” can be used interchangeably.For example, the term “domain” may also refer to a DNS (Domain NameSystem) domain, or more generally, to a data processing system thatincludes various devices and applications that appear as a logical unitto exterior entities.

[0058] The terms “request” and “response” should be understood tocomprise data formatting that is appropriate for the transfer ofinformation that is involved in a particular operation, such asmessages, communication protocol information, or other associatedinformation. A protected resource is a resource (an application, anobject, a document, a page, a file, executable code, or othercomputational resource, communication-type resource, etc.) for whichaccess is controlled or restricted.

[0059] A token provides direct evidence of a successful operation and isproduced by the entity that performs the operation, e.g., anauthentication token that is generated after a successful authenticationoperation. A Kerberos token is one example of an authentication tokenthat may be used in the present invention. More information on Kerberosmay be found in Kohl et al., “The Kerberos Network AuthenticationService (V5)”, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request forComments (RFC) 1510, September 1993.

[0060] An assertion provides indirect evidence of some action.Assertions may provide indirect evidence of identity, authentication,attributes, authorization decisions, or other information and/oroperations. An authentication assertion provides indirect evidence ofauthentication by an entity that is not the authentication service butthat listened to the authentication service.

[0061] A Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) assertion is anexample of a possible assertion format that may be used within thepresent invention. SAML has been promulgated by the Organization for theAdvancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), which is anon-profit, global consortium. SAML is described in “Assertions andProtocol for the OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)”,Committee Specification 01, May 31, 2002, as follows:

[0062] The Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is an XML-basedframework for exchanging security information. This security informationis expressed in the form of assertions about subjects, where a subjectis an entity (either human or computer) that has an identity in somesecurity domain. A typical example of a subject is a person, identifiedby his or her email address in a particular Internet DNS domain.Assertions can convey information about authentication acts performed bysubjects, attributes of subjects, and authorization decisions aboutwhether subjects are allowed to access certain resources. Assertions arerepresented as XML constructs and have a nested structure, whereby asingle assertion might contain several different internal statementsabout authentication, authorization, and attributes. Note thatassertions containing authentication statements merely describe acts ofauthentication that happened previously. Assertions are issued by SAMLauthorities, namely, authentication authorities, attribute authorities,and policy decision points. SAML defines a protocol by which clients canrequest assertions from SAML authorities and get a response from them.This protocol, consisting of XML-based request and response messageformats, can be bound to many different underlying communications andtransport protocols; SAML currently defines one binding, to SOAP overHTTP. SAML authorities can use various sources of information, such asexternal policy stores and assertions that were received as input inrequests, in creating their responses. Thus, while clients alwaysconsume assertions, SAML authorities can be both producers and consumersof assertions.

[0063] The SAML specification states that an assertion is a package ofinformation that supplies one or more statements made by an issuer. SAMLallows issuers to make three different kinds of assertion statements:authentication, in which the specified subject was authenticated by aparticular means at a particular time; authorization, in which a requestto allow the specified subject to access the specified resource has beengranted or denied; and attribute, in which the specified subject isassociated with the supplied attributes. As discussed further below,various assertion formats can be translated to other assertion formatswhen necessary.

[0064] Authentication is the process of validating a set of credentialsthat are provided by a user or on behalf of a user. Authentication isaccomplished by verifying something that a user knows, something that auser has, or something that the user is, i.e. some physicalcharacteristic about the user. Something that a user knows may include ashared secret, such as a user's password, or by verifying something thatis known only to a particular user, such as a user's cryptographic key.Something that a user has may include a smartcard or hardware token.Some physical characteristic about the user might include a biometricinput, such as a fingerprint or a retinal map.

[0065] An authentication credential is a set of challenge/responseinformation that is used in various authentication protocols. Forexample, a username and password combination is the most familiar formof authentication credentials. Other forms of authentication credentialmay include various forms of challenge/response information, Public KeyInfrastructure (PKI) certificates, smartcards, biometrics, etc. Anauthentication credential is differentiated from an authenticationassertion: an authentication credential is presented by a user as partof an authentication protocol sequence with an authentication server orservice, and an authentication assertion is a statement about thesuccessful presentation and validation of a user's authenticationcredentials, subsequently transferred between entities when necessary.

Distinguishing Prior-art Single-sign-on Solutions

[0066] As noted above, prior-art single-sign-on solutions are limited tohomogeneous environments in which there are pre-established businessagreements between participating enterprises. These business agreementsestablish trust and define secure transfers of information betweenenterprises. These business agreements also include technologicalagreements on rules on how to translate, or map, user identities fromone enterprise to another, and how to transfer the information used tovouch for users between participating enterprises.

[0067] In other words, previous single-sign-on solutions allow oneenterprise to trust an authentication assertion (along with the identityof the user provided in the assertion) produced by a differententerprise based on the pre-negotiated or pre-configured agreements.Each distinct enterprise knows how to create and interpretauthentication assertions that can be understood by other enterprisesthat have exchanged similar agreements, such as enterprises within ane-commerce marketplace. These homogeneous environments are tightlycoupled because there is a deterministic relationship known by theenterprises for mapping the user identities across these systems. Thistight coupling is possible because of the business agreements that areused to establish the single-sign-on environment.

Federation Model of Present Invention

[0068] In the context of the World Wide Web, users are coming to expectthe ability to jump from interacting with an application on one Internetdomain to another application on another domain with minimal regard tothe information barriers between each particular domain. Users do notwant the frustration that is caused by having to authenticate tomultiple domains for a single transaction. In other words, users expectthat organizations should interoperate, but users generally want domainsto respect their privacy. In addition, users may prefer to limit thedomains that permanently store private information. These userexpectations exist in a rapidly evolving heterogeneous environment inwhich many enterprises and organizations are promulgating competingauthentication techniques.

[0069] In contrast to prior-art systems, the present invention providesa federation model for allowing enterprises to provide a single-sign-onexperience to a user in the absence of specific, pre-established,business and technical agreements between particular enterprises. Inother words, the present invention supports a federated, heterogeneousenvironment. As an example of an object of the present invention,referring again to FIG. 1E, user 190 is able to authenticate to domain191 and then have domain 191 provide the appropriate assertions to eachdownstream domain that might be involved in a transaction. Thesedownstream domains need to be able to understand and trustauthentication assertions and/or other types of assertions, even thoughthere are no pre-established assertion formats between domain 191 andthese other downstream domains. In addition to recognizing theassertions, the downstream domains need to be able to translate theidentity contained within an assertion to an identity that representsuser 190 within a particular domain, even though there is nopre-established identity mapping relationship.

[0070] The present invention is directed to a federated environment. Ingeneral, an enterprise has its own user registry and maintainsrelationships with its own set of users. Each enterprise typically hasits own means of authenticating these users. However, the federatedscheme of the present invention allows enterprises to cooperate in acollective manner such that users in one enterprise can leveragerelationships with a set of enterprises through an enterprise'sparticipation in a federation of enterprises. Users can be grantedaccess to resources at any of the federated enterprises as if they had adirect relationship with each enterprise. Users are not required toregister at each business of interest, and users are not constantlyrequired to identify and authenticate themselves. Hence, within thisfederated environment, an authentication scheme allows for asingle-sign-on experience within the rapidly evolving heterogeneousenvironments in information technology.

[0071] In the present invention, a federation is a set of distinctentities, such as enterprises, organizations, institutions, etc., thatcooperate to provide a single-sign-on, ease-of-use experience to a user.In the present invention, a federated environment differs from a typicalsingle-sign-on environment in that two enterprises need not have adirect, pre-established, relationship defining how and what informationto transfer about a user. Within a federated environment, entitiesprovide services which deal with authenticating users, acceptingauthentication assertions, e.g., authentication tokens, that arepresented by other entities, and providing some form of translation ofthe identity of the vouched-for user into one that is understood withinthe local entity.

[0072] Federation eases the administrative burden on service providers.A service provider can rely on its trust relationship with respect tothe federation as a whole; the service provider does not need to manageauthentication information, such as user password information, becauseit can rely on authentication that is accomplished by a user'sauthentication home domain.

[0073] The present invention also concerns a federated identitymanagement system that establishes a foundation in which loosely coupledauthentication, user enrollment, user profile management and/orauthorization services, collaborate across security domains. Federatedidentity management allows services residing in disparate securitydomains to securely interoperate and collaborate even though there maybe differences in the underlying security mechanisms and operatingsystem platforms at these disparate domains. A single-sign-on experienceis established once a user establishes their participation in afederation.

Home Domain, Issuing Party, and Relying Party

[0074] As explained in more detail further below, the present inventionprovides significant user benefits. The present invention allows a userto authenticate at a first entity, hereinbelow also referred to as theuser's home domain or authentication home domain. This first entity mayact as an issuing party, which issues an authentication assertion aboutthe user for use at a second entity. The user can then access protectedresources at a second, distinct entity, termed the relying party, bypresenting the authentication assertion that was issued by the firstentity without having to explicitly re-authenticate at the secondentity. Information that is passed from an issuing party to a relyingparty is in the form of an assertion, and this assertion may containdifferent types of information in the form of statements. For example,an assertion may be a statement about the authenticated identity of auser, or it may be a statement about user attribute information that isassociated with a particular user.

[0075] With reference now to FIG. 2A, a block diagram depicts theterminology of the federated environment with respect to a transactionthat is initiated by a user to a first federated enterprise, which, inresponse, invokes actions at downstream entities within the federatedenvironment. FIG. 2A shows that the terminology may differ depending onthe perspective of an entity within the federation for a given federatedoperation. User 202 initiates a transaction through a request for aprotected resource at enterprise 204. If user 202 has been authenticatedby enterprise 204, then enterprise 204 is the user's home domain forthis federated session. Assuming that the transaction requires some typeof operation by enterprise 206 and enterprise 204 transfers an assertionto enterprise 206, then enterprise 204 is the issuing domain withrespect to the particular operation, and enterprise 206 is the relyingdomain for the operation. Assuming that the transaction requires furtheroperations and enterprise 206 transfers an assertion to enterprise 208,then enterprise 206 is the issuing domain with respect to the requestedoperation, and enterprise 208 is the relying domain for the operation.

[0076] In the federated environment of the present invention, the domainat which the user authenticates is termed the user's (authentication)home domain. The home domain maintains authentication credentials. Thehome domain may be the user's employer, the user's ISP, or some otherservice provider. It is possible that there may be multiple enterpriseswithin a federated environment that could act as a user's home domainbecause there may be multiple enterprises that have the ability togenerate and validate a user's authentication credentials.

[0077] From an authentication perspective, an issuing party for anauthentication assertion is usually the user's authentication homedomain. The user's home domain may or may not maintain personalinformation or profile information for the user. Hence, from anattribute perspective involving personally identifiable information,personalization information, or other user attributes, an issuing partyfor an attribute assertion may or may not be the user's authenticationhome domain, To avoid any confusion, separate terminology can beemployed for attribute home domains and authentication home domains, butthe term “home domain” hereinbelow may be interpreted as referring to anauthentication home domain.

[0078] Within the scope of a given federated session, however, there isusually one and only one domain that acts as the user's home domain.Once a user has authenticated to this domain, all other domains orenterprises in the federation are treated as relying parties for theduration of that session.

[0079] Given that the present invention provides a federatedinfrastructure that can be added to existing systems while minimizingthe impact on an existing, non-federated architecture, authentication ata user's home domain is not altered by the fact that the home domain mayalso participate within a federated environment. In other words, eventhough the home domain may be integrated into a federated environmentthat is implemented in accordance with the present invention, the usershould have the same end-user experience while performing anauthentication operation at the user's home domain. It should be noted,though, that not all of a given enterprise's users will necessarilyparticipate in the federated environment.

[0080] Moreover, user registration, e.g., establishment of a useraccount, is not altered by the fact that the home domain may alsoparticipate within a federated environment. A user establishes anaccount at a domain through a registration process that is independentof a federated environment. In other words, the establishment of a useraccount at a home domain does not include the establishment of accountinformation that is valid across a federation, e.g., identitytranslation information. If there is a single federated domain that isable to authenticate a user, i.e. there is one and only one domainwithin the federation with whom the user has registered, then thisdomain will always act as the user's home domain and may direct theuser's movement throughout the federated environment.

[0081] If a user has multiple possible home domains within a federatedenvironment, then a user may enter the federation via more than oneentry point. In other words, the user may have accounts at multipledomains, and these domains do not necessarily have information about theother domains nor about a user's identity at the other domains.

[0082] While the domain at which the user authenticates is termed thehome domain, the issuing domain is a federation entity that issues anassertion for use by another domain, i.e. the relying domain. An issuingdomain is usually, but not necessarily, the user's home domain. Hence,it would usually be the case that the issuing party has authenticatedthe user through typical authentication protocols, as mentioned above.However, it is possible that the issuing party has previously acted as arelying party whereby it received an assertion from a different issuingparty. In other words, since a user-initiated transaction may cascadethrough a series of enterprises within a federated environment, areceiving party may subsequently act as an issuing party for adownstream transaction. In general, any domain that has the ability toissue authentication assertions on behalf of a user can act as anissuing domain.

[0083] The relying domain is a domain that receives an assertion from anissuing party. The relying party is able to accept, trust, andunderstand an assertion that is issued by a third party on behalf of theuser, i.e. the issuing domain. It is generally the relying party's dutyto use an appropriate authentication authority to interpret anauthentication assertion. In addition, it is possible that the relyingparty is able to authenticate a particular user, i.e. to act as a user'shome domain, but it is also possible that a relying party may not beable to authenticate a particular user through conventional methods.Hence, a relying party is a domain or an enterprise that relies on theauthentication assertion that is presented by a user and that provides auser with a single-sign-on experience instead of prompting the user forthe user's authentication credentials as part of an interactive sessionwith the user.

Federated Architecture—Federated Front-end For Legacy Systems

[0084] With reference now to FIG. 2B, a block diagram depicts theintegration of pre-existing systems at a given domain with some of thefederated architecture components of the present invention in accordancewith an embodiment of the present invention. A federated environmentincludes federated entities that provide a variety of services forusers. User 212 interacts with client device 214, which may supportbrowser application 216 and various other client applications 218. User212 is distinct from client device 214, browser 216, or any othersoftware that acts as interface between user and other devices andservices. In some cases, the following description may make adistinction between the user acting explicitly within a clientapplication and a client application that is acting on behalf of theuser. In general, though, a requester is an intermediary, such as aclient-based application, browser, SOAP client, etc., that may beassumed to act on behalf of the user.

[0085] Browser application 216 may be a typical browser that comprisesmany modules, such as HTTP communication component 220 and markuplanguage (ML) interpreter 222. Browser application 216 may also supportplug-ins, such as web services client 224, and/or downloadable applets,which may or may not require a virtual machine runtime environment. Webservices client 224 may use Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), whichis a lightweight protocol for defining the exchange of structured andtyped information in a decentralized, distributed environment. SOAP isan XML-based protocol that consists of three parts: an envelope thatdefines a framework for describing what is in a message and how toprocess it; a set of encoding rules for expressing instances ofapplication-defined datatypes; and a convention for representing remoteprocedure calls and responses. User 212 may access web-based servicesusing browser application 216, but user 212 may also access web servicesthrough other web service clients on client device 214. Some of theexamples of the present invention that are shown in the followingfigures employ HTTP redirection via the user's browser to exchangeinformation between entities in a federated environment. However, itshould be noted that the present invention may be conducted over avariety of communication protocols and is not meant to be limited toHTTP-based communications. For example, the entities in the federatedenvironment may communicate directly when necessary; messages are notrequired to be redirected through the user's browser.

[0086] The present invention may be implemented in a manner such thatcomponents that are required for a federated environment can beintegrated with pre-existing systems. FIG. 2B depicts one embodiment forimplementing these components as a front-end to a pre-existing system.The pre-existing components at a federated domain can be considered aslegacy applications or back-end processing components 230, which includeauthentication service runtime (ASR) servers 232 in a manner similar tothat shown in FIG. 2C. ASR servers 232 are responsible forauthenticating users when the domain controls access to applicationservers 234, which can be considered to generate, retrieve, or otherwiseprocess protected resources. The domain may continue to use legacy userregistration application 236 to register users for access to applicationservers 234. Information that is needed to authenticate a registereduser is stored in legacy user registry 238.

[0087] After joining a federated environment, the domain may continue tooperate without the intervention of federated components. In otherwords, the domain may be configured so that users may continue to accessparticular application servers or other protected resources directlywithout going through a point-of-contact server or other componentimplementing this point-of-contact server functionality; a user thataccesses a system in this manner would experience typical authenticationflows and typical access. In doing so, however, a user that directlyaccesses the legacy system would not be able to establish a federatedsession that is known to the domain's point-of-contact server.

[0088] The domain's legacy functionality can be integrated into afederated environment through the use of federated front-end processing240, which includes point-of-contact server 242 and trust proxy server244 (or more simply, trust proxy 244) which itself includes SecurityToken Service (STS) 245, all of which are described in more detail belowwith respect to FIG. 2C. Federation configuration application 246 allowsan administrative user to configure the federated front-end componentsto allow them to interface with the legacy back-end components throughfederated interface unit 248.

[0089] Legacy or pre-existing authentication services at a givenenterprise may use various, well known, authentication methods ortokens, such as username/password or smart card token-based information.However, with the present invention, the functionality of a legacyauthentication service can be used in a federated environment throughthe use of point-of-contact servers. Users may continue to access alegacy authentication server directly without going through apoint-of-contact server, although a user that accesses a system in thismanner would experience typical authentication flows and typical access;a user that directly accesses a legacy authentication system would notbe able to generate a federated authentication assertion as proof ofidentity in accordance with the present invention. One of the roles ofthe federated front-end is to translate a federated authentication tokenreceived at a point-of-contact server into a format understood by alegacy authentication service. Hence, a user accessing the federatedenvironment via the point-of-contact server would not necessarily berequired to re-authenticate to the legacy authentication service.Preferably, the user would be authenticated to a legacy authenticationservice by a combination of the point-of-contact server and a trustproxy such that it appears as if the user was engaged in anauthentication dialog.

Federated Architecture—Point-of-contact Servers, Trust Proxies, andTrust Brokers

[0090] With reference now to FIG. 2C, a block diagram depicts afederated architecture in accordance with an implementation of thepresent invention. A federated environment includes federatedenterprises or similar entities that provide a variety of services forusers. A user, through an application on a client device, may attempt toaccess resources at various entities, such as enterprise 250. Apoint-of-contact server at each federated enterprise, such aspoint-of-contact (POC) server 252 at enterprise 250, is the user's entrypoint into the federated environment. The point-of-contact serverminimizes the impact on existing components within an existing,non-federated architecture, e.g., legacy systems, because thepoint-of-contact server handles many of the federation requirements. Thepoint-of-contact server provides session management, protocolconversion, and possibly initiates authentication assertion conversion.For example, the point-of-contact server may translate HTTP or HTTPSmessages to SOAP and vice versa. As explained in more detail furtherbelow, the point-of-contact server may also be used to invoke a trustproxy to translate authentication assertions, e.g., a SAML tokenreceived from an issuing party can be translated into a Kerberos tokenunderstood by a receiving party.

[0091] A trust proxy or a trust proxy server, such as trust proxy (TP)254 at enterprise 250, establishes and maintains a trust relationshipbetween two entities in a federation. A trust proxy generally has theability to handle authentication token format translation (through thesecurity token service, which is described in more detail further below)from a format used by the issuing party to one understood by thereceiving party.

[0092] Together, the use of a point-of-contact server and a trust proxyminimize the impact of implementing a federated architecture on anexisting, non-federated set of systems. Hence, the federatedarchitecture of the present invention requires the implementation of atleast one point-of-contact server and at least one trust proxy perfederated entity, whether the entity is an enterprise, a domain, orother logical or physical entity. The federated architecture of thepresent invention, though, does not necessarily require any changes tothe existing, non-federated set of systems. Preferably, there is asingle trust proxy for a given federated entity, but there may bemultiple trust proxies for availability purposes, or there may bemultiple trust proxies for a variety of smaller entities within afederated entity, e.g., separate subsidiaries within an enterprise. Itis possible that a given entity could belong to more than onefederation, although this scenario would not necessarily requiremultiple trust proxies as a single trust proxy could manage trustrelationships within multiple federations.

[0093] One role of a trust proxy is to determine the required token typeby another domain and/or the trust proxy in that domain. A trust proxyhas the ability to handle authentication token format translation from aformat used by the issuing party to one understood by the receivingparty. Trust proxy 254 is also responsible for any user identitytranslation or attribute translation that occurs for enterprise 250.However, a trust proxy may invoke a trust broker for assistance, asdescribed further below. Identity translation may be required to map auser's identity and attributes as known to an issuing party to one thatis meaningful to a receiving party. This translation may be invoked byeither a trust proxy at an issuing domain or a trust proxy at areceiving domain.

[0094] Trust proxy 254 may include an internalized component, shown assecurity token service (STS) component 255, which will provide tokentranslation and will invoke authentication service runtime (ASR) 256 tovalidate and generate tokens. The security token service provides thetoken issuance and validation services required by the trust proxy. Thesecurity token service therefore includes an interface to existingauthentication service runtimes, or it incorporates authenticationservice runtimes into the service itself. Rather than being internalizedwithin the trust proxy, the security token service component may also beimplemented as a stand-alone component, e.g., to be invoked by the trustproxy, or it may be internalized within the transaction server, e.g., aspart of an application server.

[0095] For example, an STS component may receive a request to issue aKerberos token. As part of the authentication information of the userfor whom the token is to be created, the request may contain a binarytoken containing a username and password. The STS component willvalidate the username and password against, e.g., an LDAP runtime(typical authentication) and will invoke a Kerberos KDC (KeyDistribution Center) to generate a Kerberos ticket for this user. Thistoken is returned to the trust proxy for use within the enterprise;however, this use may include externalizing the token for transfer toanother domain in the federation.

[0096] In a manner similar to that described with respect to FIG. 1D, auser may desire to access resources at multiple enterprises within afederated environment, such as both enterprise 250 and enterprise 260.In a manner similar to that described above for enterprise 250,enterprise 260 comprises point-of-contact server 262, trust proxy 264,security token service 265, and authentication service runtime 266.Although the user may directly initiate separate transactions with eachenterprise, the user may initiate a transaction with enterprise 250which cascades throughout the federated environment. Enterprise 250 mayrequire collaboration with multiple other enterprises within thefederated environment, such as enterprise 260, to complete a particulartransaction, even though the user may not have been aware of thisnecessity when the user initiated a transaction. Enterprise 260 becomesinvolved as a downstream domain, and the present invention allowsenterprise 250 to present a federated assertion to enterprise 260 ifnecessary in order to further the user's transaction.

[0097] It may be the case that a trust proxy does not know how tointerpret the authentication token that is received by an associatedpoint-of-contact server and/or how to translate a given user identityand attributes. In this case, the trust proxy may choose to invokefunctionality at a trust broker component, such as trust broker 268. Atrust broker maintains relationships with individual trust proxies,thereby providing transitive trust between trust proxies. Using a trustbroker allows each entity within a federated environment, suchenterprises 250 and 260, to establish a trust relationship with thetrust broker rather than establishing multiple individual trustrelationships with each domain in the federated environment. Forexample, when enterprise 260 becomes involved as a downstream domain fora transaction initiated by a user at enterprise 250, trust proxy 254 atenterprise 250 can be assured that trust proxy 264 at enterprise 260 canunderstand an assertion from trust proxy 254 by invoking assistance attrust broker 268 if necessary. Although FIG. 2C depicts the federatedenvironment with a single trust broker, a federated environment may havemultiple trust brokers.

[0098] It should be noted that although FIG. 2C depicts point-of-contactserver 252, trust proxy 254, security token service component 255, andauthentication service runtime 256 as distinct entities, it is notnecessary for these components to be implemented on separate devices.For example, it is possible for the functionality of these separatecomponents to be implemented as applications on a single physical deviceor combined in a single application. In addition, FIG. 2C depicts asingle point-of-contact server, a single trust proxy, and a singlesecurity token server for an enterprise, but an alternativeconfiguration may include multiple point-of-contact servers, multipletrust proxies, and multiple security token servers for each enterprise.The point-of-contact server, the trust proxy, the security tokenservice, and other federated entities may be implemented in variousforms, such as software applications, objects, modules, softwarelibraries, etc.

[0099] A trust proxy/STS may be capable of accepting and validating manydifferent authentication credentials, including traditional credentialssuch as a username and password combinations and Kerberos tickets, andfederated authentication token formats, including authentication tokensproduced by a third party. A trust proxy/STS may allow the acceptance ofan authentication token as proof of authentication elsewhere. Theauthentication token is produced by an issuing party and is used toindicate that a user has already authenticated to that issuing party.The issuing party produces the authentication token as a means ofasserting the authenticated identity of a user.

[0100] A security token service invokes an authentication serviceruntime as necessary. The authentication service runtime supports anauthentication service capable of authenticating a user. Theauthentication service acts as an authentication authority that providesindications of successful or failed authentication attempts viaauthentication responses. The trust proxy/STS may internalize anauthentication service, e.g., a scenario in which there is a brand-newinstallation of a web service that does not need to interact with anexisting legacy infrastructure. Otherwise, the STS component will invokeexternal authentication services for validation of authenticationtokens. For example, the STS component could “unpack” a binary tokencontaining a username/password and then use an LDAP service to access auser registry to validate the presented credentials.

[0101] When used by another component such as an application server, theSTS component can be used to produce tokens required for single-sign-onto legacy authentication systems. Hence, the STS component can be usedfor token translation for internal purposes, i.e. within an enterprise,and for external purposes, i.e. across enterprises in a federation. Asan example of an internal purpose, a Web application server mayinterface to a mainframe via an IBM CICS (Customer Information ControlSystem) transaction gateway; CICS is a family of application servers andconnectors that provides enterprise-level online transaction managementand connectivity for mission-critical applications. The Web applicationserver may invoke the STS component to translate a Kerberos ticket (asused internally by the Web application server) to a an IBM RACF®passticket required by the CICS transaction gateway.

[0102] The entities that are shown in FIG. 2C can be explained using theterminology that was introduced above, e.g., “issuing party” and“relying party”. As part of establishing and maintaining trustrelationships, an issuing party's trust proxy can determine what tokentypes are required/accepted by a relying party's trust proxy. Thus,trust proxies use this information when invoking token services from asecurity token service. When an issuing domain's trust proxy is requiredto produce an authentication assertion for a relying party, the trustproxy determines the required token type and requests the appropriatetoken from the security token service.

[0103] When a relying domain's trust proxy receives an authenticationassertion from an issuing party, the trust proxy knows what type ofassertion that it expected and what type of assertion that it needs forinternal use within the relying domain. The relying domain's trust proxytherefore requests that the security token service generate the requiredinternal-use token based on the token in the received authenticationassertion.

[0104] Both trust proxies and trust brokers have the ability totranslate an assertion received from an issuing party into a format thatis understood by a relying party. The trust broker has the ability tointerpret the assertion format (or formats) for each of the trustproxies with whom there is a direct trust relationship, thereby allowingthe trust broker to provide assertion translation between an issuingparty and a relying party. This translation can be requested by eitherparty through its local trust proxy. Thus, the issuing party's trustproxy can request translation of an assertion before it is sent to therelying party. Likewise, the relying party's trust proxy can requesttranslation of an assertion received from an issuing party.

[0105] Assertion translation comprises user identity translation,authentication assertion translation, attribute assertion translation,or other forms of assertion translation. Reiterating the point above,assertion translation is handled by the trust components within afederation, i.e. trust proxies and trust brokers. A trust proxy mayperform the translation locally, either at the issuing domain or at therelying domain, or a trust proxy may invoke assistance from a trustbroker.

[0106] Assuming that an issuing party and a relying party already haveindividual trust relationships with a trust broker, the trust broker candynamically create, i.e. broker, new trust relationships between issuingparties and relying parties if necessary. After the initial trustrelationship brokering operation that is provided by the trust broker,the issuing party and the relying party may directly maintain therelationship so that the trust broker need not be invoked for futuretranslation requirements. It should be noted that translation ofauthentication tokens can happen at three possible places: the issuingparty's trust proxy, the relying party's trust proxy, and the trustbroker. Preferably, the issuing party's trust proxy generates anauthentication assertion that is understood by the trust broker to sendto the relying party. The relying party then requests a translation ofthis token from the trust broker into a format recognizable by therelying party. Token translation may occur before transmission, aftertransmission, or both before and after transmission of theauthentication assertion.

Trust Relationships Within Federated Architecture

[0107] Within a federated environment that is implemented in accordancewith the present invention, there are two types of “trust domains” thatmust be managed: enterprise trust domains and federation trust domains.The differences between these two types of trust domain are based inpart on the business agreements governing the trust relationships withthe trust domain and the technology used to establish trust. Anenterprise trust domain contains those components that are managed bythe enterprise; all components within that trust domain trust eachother. In general, there are no business agreements required toestablish trust within an enterprise because the deployed technologycreates inherent trust within an enterprise, e.g., by requiring mutuallyauthenticated SSL sessions between components. Referring to FIG. 2B, thelegacy applications and back-end processing systems may represent anenterprise trust domain.

[0108] Federation trust domains are those that cross enterpriseboundaries; from one perspective, a federation trust domain mayrepresent trust relationships between distinct enterprise trust domains.Federation trust domains are established through trust proxies acrossenterprise boundaries. Federated trust relationships involve some sortof a bootstrapping process by which initial trust is established betweentrust proxies. Part of this bootstrap process may include theestablishment of shared secret keys and rules that define the expectedand/or allowed token types and identifier translations. In general, thisbootstrapping process is implemented out-of-band as this process alsoincludes the establishment of business agreements that govern anenterprise's participation in a federation and the liabilitiesassociated with this participation.

[0109] There a number of mechanisms for establishing trust in afederated business model. In a federation model, a fundamental notion oftrust between the federation participants is required for businessreasons in order to provide a level of assurance that the assertions(including tokens and attribute information) that are transferredbetween the participants are valid. If there is no trust relationship,then the relying domain cannot depend upon the assertions received fromthe issuing domain; they cannot be used by the relying domain todetermine how to interpret any information received from the issuingparty.

[0110] For example, a large corporation may want to link severalthousand global customers, and the corporation could use prior artsolutions. As a first example, the corporation could require globalcustomers to use a digital certificate from a commercial certificateauthority to establish mutual trust. The commercial certificateauthority enables the servers at the corporation to trust serverslocated at each of the global customers. As a second example, thecorporation could implement third-party trust using Kerberos; thecorporation and its global customers could implement a trustedthird-party Kerberos domain service that implements shared-secret-basedtrust. As a third example, the corporation could establish a privatescheme with a proprietary security message token that is mutuallytrusted by the servers of its global customers.

[0111] Any one of these approaches may be acceptable if the corporationneeded to manage trust relationships with a small number of globalcustomers, but this may become unmanageable if there are hundreds orthousands of potential federation partners. For example, while it may bepossible for the corporation to force its smaller partners to implementa private scheme, it is unlikely that the corporation will be able toimpose many requirements on its larger partners.

[0112] With the present invention, the enterprise will employ trustrelationships established and maintained through trust proxies andpossibly trust brokers. An advantage of the federated architecture ofthe present invention is that it does not impose additional requirementsabove and beyond the current infrastructures of an enterprise and itspotential federation partners.

[0113] However, the present invention does not relieve an enterprise andits potential federation partners from the preliminary work required toestablish business and liability agreements that are required forparticipation in the federation. In addition, the participants cannotignore the technological bootstrapping of a trust relationship. Thepresent invention allows this bootstrapping to be flexible, e.g., afirst federation partner can issue a Kerberos ticket with certaininformation, while a second federation partner can issue a SAMLauthentication assertion with certain information.

[0114] In the present invention, the trust relationships are managed bythe federation trust proxies, which may include a security token servicethat validates and translates a token that is received from an issuingparty based on the pre-established relationship between two trustproxies. In situations where it is not feasible for a federatedenterprise to establish trust relationships (and token translation) withanother federated enterprise, a trust broker may be invoked. However,the federated enterprise must still establish a relationship with atrust broker.

[0115] With reference now to FIG. 2D, a block diagram depicts anexemplary set of trust relationships between federated domains usingtrust proxies and a trust broker in accordance with the presentinvention. Although FIG. 2C introduced the trust broker, FIG. 2Dillustrates the importance of transitive trust relationships within thefederated architecture of the present invention.

[0116] Federated domains 271-273 incorporate trust proxies 274-276,respectively. Trust proxy 274 has direct trust relationship 277 withtrust proxy 275. Trust broker 280 has direct trust relationship 278 withtrust proxy 275, and trust broker 280 has direct trust relationship 279with trust proxy 276. Trust broker 280 is used to establish, on behalfof a federation participant, a trust relationship based on transitivetrust with other federation partners. The principle of transitive trustallows trust proxy 275 and trust proxy 276 to have brokered trustrelationship 281 via trust broker 280. Neither trust proxy 275 nor 276need to know how to translate or validate the other's assertions; thetrust broker may be invoked to translate an assertion into one that isvalid, trusted, and understood at the other trust proxy.

[0117] Business agreements that specify contractual obligations andliabilities with respect to the trust relationships between federatedenterprises can be expressed in XML through the use of the ebXML(Electronic Business using XML) standards. For example, a direct trustrelationship could be represented in an ebXML document; each federateddomain that shares a direct trust relationship would have a copy of acontract that is expressed as an ebXML document. Operationalcharacteristics for various entities within a federation may bespecified within ebXML choreographies and published within ebXMLregistries; any enterprise that wishes to participate in a particularfederation, e.g., to operate a trust proxy or trust broker, would needto conform to the published requirements that were specified by thatparticular federation for all trust proxies or trust brokers within thefederation. A security token service could parse these ebXML documentsfor operational details on the manner in which tokens from other domainsare to be translated. It should be noted, though, that other standardsand mechanisms could be employed by the present invention for specifyingthe details about the manner in which the trust relationships within afederation are implemented.

Assertion Processing Within Federated Architecture

[0118] As noted above, a user's experience within a federation isgoverned in part by the assertions about the user or for the user thatare transferred across domains. Assertions provide information about theuser's authentication status, attribute information, and otherinformation. Using authentication assertions can remove the need for auser to re-authenticate at every site that the user visits. Within afederated environment, there are two models to get an assertion from anissuing party to a relying party: push models and pull models. In a pushmodel, the user's assertions travel with the user's request to theissuing party. In a pull model, the user's request is received at arelying party without any information, and the relying party thenrequests the relevant or required assertions from the issuing party.

[0119] Given these models for using assertions within a federatedenvironment, the description of the present invention now turns to a setof figures that describe a set of processes for creating and usingassertions within the federated environment of the present invention.FIG. 3A depicts a generalized process at an issuing domain for creatingan assertion within a federated environment, whereas FIG. 3B depicts ageneralized process at a relying domain for “tearing down” an assertion,i.e. for reducing an assertion to its essential information byextracting and analyzing its information. FIG. 3C and FIG. 3D show moredetailed processes for the generalized process that is shown in FIG. 3Aby depicting two variants of a push model in which an assertion isproduced within an issuing domain and is then transferred with a user'srequest to the relying domain. FIG. 3E depicts a pull model in which arelying domain requests any required assertions for a user from anissuing domain while attempting to satisfy a resource request that wasreceived by the relying domain from the requesting user.

[0120] With reference now to FIG. 3A, a flowchart depicts a generalizedprocess at an issuing domain for creating an assertion within afederated environment. The process begins when the issuing domain'spoint-of-contact server is triggered for an assertion (step 302). Thepoint-of-contact server may receive a request for a particular assertionfor a given user from a relying domain, or it may intercept an outgoingrequest to a known relying domain that requires an assertion; thesescenarios are described in more detail below with respect to FIG. 3C andFIG. 3D, respectively. In response to being triggered for an assertion,the issuing domain's point-of-contact server requests the assertion fromthe issuing domain's trust proxy (step 304), which generates theassertion (step 306); the issuing domain's trust proxy may requestassistance from a trust broker to generate the required assertion ifnecessary. After generating the assertion, the issuing domain's trustproxy then returns the assertion to the issuing domain'spoint-of-contact server (step 308), which then injects the assertioninto the output datastream in an appropriate manner (step 310), e.g., byinserting the assertion into an outgoing HTTP or SOAP message, therebycompleting the process.

[0121]FIG. 3A depicts a process for creating an assertion at an issuingdomain without the use of a “local wallet”. However, the presentinvention allows for the inclusion of local wallet functionality. Ingeneral, a local wallet is client-side code that may act as a securedatastore for user attribute information or other information forfacilitating transactions; the client-side code may also participate inthe push and/or pull models of assertion transfer. When the local walletactively participates in the protocol, it implements a subset of thefunctionality of the point-of-contact server functionality in terms ofgenerating and inserting assertions into the protocol flow. Using alocal wallet does not allow for the local wallet to implement thetrust-based interactions that occur between a point-of-contact serverand the trust proxy. In cases in which additional trust relationshipsare required, the point-of-contact server must be invoked.

[0122] With reference now to FIG. 3B, a flowchart depicts a generalizedprocess at a relying domain for tearing down an assertion. The processbegins when a relying domain's point-of-contact server receives amessage with an associated assertion (step 322), after which it extractsthe assertion and forwards the assertion to the relying domain's trustproxy (step 324). The relying domain's trust proxy extracts informationfrom the assertion, including the token received from the issuing domain(step 326); the relying domain's trust proxy will invoke the securitytoken service to validate this token, returning a locally valid tokenfor the user if appropriate (step 328).

[0123] As part of step 326, the trust proxy will determine the source,i.e. issuing party, of the assertion. If the trust proxy is able tounderstand a trust assertion received from this issuing domain, thetrust proxy will perform step 328 internally. If the trust proxy is notable to understand/trust assertions received from the issuing domain,the trust proxy may invoke assistance from a trust broker. If theassertion cannot be validated, then an appropriate error response wouldbe generated.

[0124] Assuming that the assertion is validated, then the relyingdomain's trust proxy builds the local information that is required forthe user (step 330). For example, the local information may includeauthentication credentials that are required by a back-end legacyapplication. The relying domain's trust proxy returns the requiredinformation to the relying domain's point-of-contact server (step 332),which builds a local session for the user.

[0125] After the point-of-contact server builds a session for user, theuser appears as an authenticated user. The point-of-contact server canuse this session information to further govern any transactions the userhas with the domain until a logout or timeout event is initiated. Giventhat the point-of-contact server has an authenticated identity for theuser, the point-of-contact server may obtain authorization for thisrequest if necessary based on this particular user's identity and anyauthorization policies that are associated with this particular user.The point-of-contact server then forwards the user's request with anyrelevant information to the requested back-end application or service(step 334), thereby completing the process.

[0126] It should be noted that the data items that are transferredbetween the point-of-contact server and the trust proxy and the formatof those data items may vary. Rather than extracting an assertion fromthe message and forwarding only the assertion to the trust proxy, thepoint-of-contact server may forward the entire message to the trustproxy. For example, the processing at the trust proxy may include stepslike signature validation on a SOAP message, which would require theentire SOAP envelope.

[0127] With reference now to FIG. 3C, a flowchart depicts a specificprocess for pushing an assertion from an issuing domain to a relyingdomain in response to a user action at the issuing domain. The processbegins when a user accesses a link to the relying domain from a Web pageor similar resource within the issuing domain (step 342), therebyinvoking some form of CGI-type (Common Gateway Interface) processing tobuild a particular assertion. The ability of the issuing domain torecognize the need for an assertion by the relying domain implies atight integration with an existing legacy system on which the federatedinfrastructure of the present invention is implemented. It also impliesa tight coupling between the issuing party and relying party such thatthe issuing party does not need to invoke a trust proxy to build therequired assertion; this tight coupling may be appropriate betweencertain types of federated entities that have well-established trustrelationships.

[0128] Back-end processing at the issuing domain is invoked to build therequired assertion (step 344), which may include invoking functionalityat the local trust proxy. The user's request to the relying domain,including the required assertion, is then built (step 346), and theissuing domain transfers the assertion along with the user's request tothe relying domain (step 348), thereby completing the process. When therelying domain receives the request and its associated assertion, thenthe relying domain would validate the assertion in the manner shown inFIG. 3B.

[0129] With reference now to FIG. 3D, a flowchart depicts a specificprocess for pushing an assertion from an issuing domain to a relyingdomain in response to the issuing domain actively intercepting anoutgoing request to the relying domain. The process begins when a userrequests a protected resource at the relying domain (step 352). Thepoint-of-contact server intercepts the outgoing request (step 354),e.g., by filtering outgoing messages for predetermined Uniform ResourceIdentifiers (URI's), certain types of messages, certain types of messagecontent, or in some other manner. The issuing domain's point-of-contactserver then requests the generation of an appropriate assertion from theissuing domain's trust proxy (step 356), which generates the assertionwith assistance from a trust broker if necessary (step 358). The issuingdomain then transfers the user's request along with the generatedassertion to the relying party (step 360), thereby completing theprocess. When the relying domain receives the request and its associatedassertion, then the relying domain would validate the assertion in themanner shown in FIG. 3B.

[0130] With reference now to FIG. 3E, a flowchart depicts a pull modelin which a relying domain requests any required assertions for a userfrom an issuing domain while attempting to satisfy a resource requestthat was received by the relying domain from the requesting user. Theprocess begins when the relying domain receives a user request for aprotected resource (step 372). In contrast to the examples shown in FIG.3C or FIG. 3D, the example that is shown in FIG. 3E describes theprocessing that is associated with a user's request that is received ata relying domain in absence of any required assertions about a user. Inthis case, the issuing domain has not had the ability to intercept orotherwise process the user's request in order to insert the requiredassertions in the user's request. For example, the user might haveentered a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or used a bookmarked referenceto a resource in such a way that the outgoing request was notintercepted by an issuing domain's point-of-contact server. Hence, therelying domain requests the assertion from an issuing domain.

[0131] The relying domain then determines the user's home domain (step374), i.e. the relevant issuing domain. In an HTTP-based implementation,the user may have pre-established a relationship with the relying domainthat resulted in a persistent cookie being set by the relying domain atthe user's client device. The persistent cookie would contain anidentity of the user's home domain, i.e. issuing domain. In a SOAP-basedimplementation in which the user is operating a web services client insome manner, the web service at the relying domain would have advertisedthe services requirements via WSDL (Web Services Description Language),including token requirements. This would then require the user's webservices client/SOAP implementation to provide the required token type.If this requirement was not fulfilled, then the web service wouldtechnically return an error. In some cases, it may return an error codethat would allow the user's web services client to be prompted forauthentication information so that the request could be repeated withthe appropriate token.

[0132] The relying domain's point-of-contact server initiates anassertion request with the relying domain's trust proxy (step 376),which requests an assertion for the user from the issuing domain's trustproxy (step 378). If the embodiment is employing HTTP-basedcommunication, then an assertion request from the relying domain's trustproxy to the issuing domain's trust proxy may be transmitted by therelying domain's point-of-contact server via redirection through theuser's browser application to the point-of-contact server at the issuingdomain, which forwards the assertion request to the issuing domain'strust proxy.

[0133] If the embodiment is employing a SOAP-based implementation, thenthe relying party may return an error code to the user's web serviceclient. This error code allows the user to be prompted forauthentication information by their web services client. The webservices client would then generate the requested token. The user's webservices client could invoke a trust proxy directly provided that therelying domain's trust proxy was advertised in a UDDI (UniversalDescription, Discovery, and Integration) registry, allowing the user'sweb services client to find the trust proxy. In general, this scenariois valid only for an internal user, where the trust proxy was advertisedin a private UDDI within the enterprise because it is not likely that atrust proxy will be advertised in a public UDDI on the Internet orgenerally accessible outside of a federation.

[0134] The issuing domain's trust proxy generates (step 380) and thenreturns the requested assertion (step 382) in a manner that mirrors themanner in which the assertion request was received. After the relyingdomain's trust proxy receives the requested assertion (step 384), thenthe relying domain's trust proxy extracts information from the assertion(step 386) and attempts to interpret and/or validate the assertion (step388); the trust proxy may invoke assistance from a trust broker ifnecessary for translation of the assertion. If the assertion cannot bevalidated, then an appropriate error response would be generated.Assuming that the assertion is validated, then the relying domain'strust proxy builds the local information in an appropriate format thatis required for use by the back-end services that will attempt tofulfill the user's request for the protected resource (step 390). Forexample, the local information may include authentication credentialsthat are required by a back-end legacy application. The relying domain'strust proxy returns the required information to the relying domain'spoint-of-contact server (step 392), which then builds a local sessionfor the user and forwards the user's request with any relevantinformation to the requested back-end application or service (step 394),thereby completing the process.

Single-sign-on Within Federated Architecture

[0135] The description of FIGS. 2A-2D focuses on the operationalcharacteristics of entities within a federated data processingenvironment in accordance with the present invention, whereas thedescription of FIGS. 3A-3E focuses on some of the processes that occurbetween those entities. In contrast to these descriptions, reference ismade to FIG. 4 for a description of the present invention that focuseson the goals of completing transactions for a user while providing asingle-sign-on experience for the user.

[0136] In other words, the description hereinbelow discusses theentities and processes that were already discussed above, although thefollowing description focuses more on an overview perspective of thepresent invention with respect to the manner in which a user can have asingle-sign-on experience within the user's session. A session can bedefined as the set of transactions from (and including) the initial userauthentication, i.e. logon, to logout. Within a session, a user'sactions will be governed in part by the privileges granted to the userfor that session. Within a federation, a user expects to have asingle-sign-on experience in which the user completes a singleauthentication operation, and this authentication operation suffices forthe duration of their session, regardless of the federation partnersvisited during that session.

[0137] During the user's session, the user may visit many federateddomains to use the web services that are offered by those domains.Domains can publish descriptions of services that they provide usingstandard specifications such as UDDI and WSDL, both of which use XML asa common data format. The user finds the available services and serviceproviders through applications that also adhere to these standardspecifications. SOAP provides a paradigm for communicating requests andresponses that are expressed in XML. Entities within a federatedenvironment may employ these standards among others.

[0138] To facilitate a single-sign-on experience, web service thatsupport the federated environment will also support using anauthentication assertion or security token generated by a third-party toprovide proof of authentication of a user. This assertion will containsome sort of evidence of the user's successful authentication to theissuing party together with an identifier for that user. Thus, a usermay present traditional authentication credentials to one federationpartner, e.g., username and password, and then provide a SAMLauthentication assertion that is generated by the authenticating/issuingparty to a different federation partner.

[0139] Authentication in a web services environment is the act ofverifying the claimed identity of the web services request so that theenterprise can restrict access to authorized clients. A user whorequests or invokes a web service would almost always authenticated, sothe need for authentication within the federated environment of thepresent invention is not any different from current requirements of webservices for user authentication. The federated environment also allowsweb services or other applications to request web services, and theseweb services would also be authenticated.

[0140] Authentication of users that are not participating in a federatedsession are not impacted by the federated architecture of the presentinvention. For example, an existing user who authenticates with aforms-based authentication mechanism over HTTP/S to access non-federatedresources at a particular domain is not affected by the introduction ofsupport at the domain for the federated environment. Authentication ishandled in part by a point-of-contact server, which in turn may invoke aseparate trust proxy component. The use of a point-of-contact serverminimizes the impact on the infrastructure of an existing domain. Forexample, the point-of-contact server can be configured to pass throughall non-federated requests to be handled by the back-end or legacyapplications and systems at the domain.

[0141] The point-of-contact server may choose to invoke an HTTP-basedauthentication method, such as basic authentication, forms-basedauthentication, or some other authentication method. Thepoint-of-contact server also supports a federated trust domain byrecognizing an assertion that has been presented by the user as proof ofauthentication, such as an SAML authentication assertion, wherein theassertion has crossed between enterprise trust domains. Thepoint-of-contact server may invoke the trust proxy, which in turn mayinvoke its security token service for validation of authenticationcredentials/security tokens.

[0142] Authentication of web services or other applications comprisesthe same process as authentication of users. Requests from web servicescarry a security token containing an authentication assertion, and thissecurity token would be validated by the trust proxy/security tokenservice in the same manner as a token presented by a user. A requestfrom a web service should always carry this token with it because theweb service would have discovered what authenticationassertions/security tokens were required by the requested service asadvertised in UDDI.

[0143] With reference now to FIG. 4, a block diagram depicts a federatedenvironment that supports federated single-sign-on operations. User 400,through a client device and an appropriate client application, such as abrowser, desires to access a web service that is provided byenterprise/domain 410, which supports data processing systems that actas a federated domain within a federated environment. Domain 410supports point-of-contact server 412 and trust proxy 414; similarly,domain 420 supports point-of-contact server 422 and trust proxy 424,while domain 430 supports point-of-contact server 432 and trust proxy434. The trust proxies rely upon trust broker 450 for assistance, asdescribed above. Additional domains and trust proxies may participate inthe federated environment. FIG. 4 describes a federated single-sign-onoperation between domain 410 and domain 420; a similar operation mayoccur between domain 410 and domain 430.

[0144] The user completes an authentication operation with respect todomain 410; this authentication operation is handled by point-of-contactserver 412. The authentication operation is triggered when the userrequests access to some resource that requires an authenticatedidentity, e.g., for access control purposes or for personalizationpurposes. Point-of-contact server 412 may invoke a legacy authenticationservice, or it may invoke trust proxy 414 to validate the user'spresented authentication credentials. Domain 410 becomes the user's homedomain for the duration of the user's federated session.

[0145] At some later point in time, the user initiates a transaction ata federation partner, such as enterprise 420 that also supports afederated domain, thereby triggering a federated single-sign-onoperation. For example, a user may initiate a new transaction at domain420, or the user's original transaction may cascade into one or moreadditional transactions at other domains. As another example, the usermay invoke a federated single-sign-on operation to a resource in domain420 via point-of-contact server 412, e.g., by selecting a special linkon a web page that is hosted within domain 410 or by requesting a portalpage that is hosted within domain 410 but that displays resources hostedin domain 420. Point-of-contact server 412 sends a request to trustproxy 414 to generated a federation single-sign-on token for the userthat is formatted to be understood or trusted by domain 420. Trust proxy414 returns this token to point-of-contact server 412, which sends thistoken to point-of-contact server 422 in domain. Domain 410 acts as anissuing party for the user at domain 420, which acts as a relying party.The user's token would be transferred with the user's request to domain420; this token may be sent using HTTP redirection via the user'sbrowser, or it may be sent by invoking the request directly ofpoint-of-contact server 422 (over HTTP or SOAP-over-HTTP) on behalf ofthe user identified in the token supplied by trust proxy 414.

[0146] Point-of-contact server 422 receives the request together withthe federation single-sign-on token and invokes trust proxy 424. Trustproxy 424 receives the federation single-sign-on token, validates thetoken, and assuming that the token is valid and trusted, generates alocally valid token for the user. Trust proxy 424 returns the locallyvalid token to point-of-contact server 422, which establishes a sessionfor the user within domain 420. If necessary, point-of-contact server422 can initiate a federated single-sign-on at another federatedpartner.

[0147] Validation of the token at domain 420 is handled by the trustproxy 424, possibly with assistance from a security token service.Depending on the type of token presented by domain 410, the securitytoken service may need to access a user registry at domain 420. Forexample, domain 420 may provide a binary security token containing theuser's name and password to be validated against the user registry atdomain 420. Hence, in this example, an enterprise simply validates thesecurity token from a federated partner. The trust relationship betweendomains 410 and 420 ensures that domain 420 can understand and trust thesecurity token presented by domain 410 on behalf of the user.

[0148] Federated single-sign-on requires not only the validation of thesecurity token that is presented to a relying domain on behalf of theuser but the determination of a locally valid user identifier at therelying domain based on information contained in the security token. Oneresult of a direct trust relationship and the business agreementsrequired to establish such a relationship is that at least one party,either the issuing domain or the relying domain or both, will know howto translate the information provided by the issuing domain into anidentifier valid at the relying domain. In the brief example above, itwas assumed that the issuing domain, i.e. domain 410, is able to providethe relying domain, i.e. domain 420, with a user identifier that isvalid in domain 420. In that scenario, the relying domain did not needto invoke any identity mapping functionality. Trust proxy 424 at domain420 will generate a security token for the user that will “vouch-for”this user. The types of tokens that are accepted, the signatures thatare required on tokens, and other requirements are all pre-establishedas part of the federation's business agreements. The rules andalgorithms that govern identifier translation are also pre-establishedas part of the federation's business agreements. In the case of a directtrust relationship between two participants, the identifier translationalgorithms will have been established for those two parties and may notbe relevant for any other parties in the federation.

[0149] However, it is not always the case that the issuing domain willknow how to map the user from a local identifier for domain 410 to alocal identifier for domain 420. In some cases, it may be the relyingdomain that knows how to do this mapping, while in yet other cases,neither party will know how to do this translation, in which case athird party trust broker may need to be invoked. In other words, in thecase of a brokered trust relationship, the issuing and relying domainsdo not have a direct trust relationship with each other. They will,however, have a direct trust relationship with a trust broker, such astrust broker 450. Identifier mapping rules and algorithms will have beenestablished as part of this relationship, and the trust broker will usethis information to assist in the identifier translation that isrequired for a brokered trust relationship.

[0150] Domain 420 receives the token that is issued by domain 410 atpoint-of-contract server 422, which invokes trust proxy 424 to validatethe token and perform identity mapping. In this case, since trust proxy424 is not able to map the user from a local identifier for domain 410to a local identifier for domain 420, trust proxy 424 invokes trustbroker 450, which validates the token and performs the identifiermapping. After obtaining the local identifier for the user, trust proxy424, possibly through its security token service, can generate any localtokens that are required by the back-end applications at domain 420,e.g., a Kerberos token may be required to facilitate single-sign-on fromthe point-of-contact server to the application server. After obtaining alocally valid token, if required, the point-of-contact server is able tobuild a local session for the user. The point-of-contract server willalso handle coarse-grained authorization of user requests and forwardthe authorized requests to the appropriate application servers withindomain 420.

[0151] A user's session is terminated when they logout or sign-off. Whena user logs out of a session with their home domain, then the homedomain would notify all relying domains, i.e. those domains to which ithas issued a security token, and invoke a user logout at these domains.If any of these relying domains has in turn acted as an issuing domainfor the same user, then they would also notify all of their relyingdomains about the user logout request in a cascading fashion. The trustproxy at each domain would be responsible for notifying all relyingdomains of the user's logout request, and the trust proxy may invoke thetrust broker as part of this process.

[0152] The advantages of the present invention should be apparent inview of the detailed description of the invention that is providedabove. Prior art solutions organize domain security services intohierarchies, which requires the domains to have rigid trustrelationships and intrinsically compatible technologies. Otherapproaches impose a uniform format on the authentication assertion or donot allow for the transfer of authentication assertions, sometimestransferring an authenticated identity from which a local assertion isbuilt.

[0153] Among the advantages of the present invention, the trust proxiesallow the pre-existing security services in a given domain to establishtrust relationships with other domains without having to subscribe tothe same trust root or use the same trust-establishment technology.Hence, the federated architecture of the present invention provides aloose coupling of entities. A home domain manages authentication, andeach domain manages authentication of only its own registered users.Each domain is free to accept, reject, or modify any other domain'sstatements about user identity and attributes. A relying domain relieson an issuing domain's (ultimately, a home domain's) assertions ofidentity and attributes, yet each domain can implement anyauthentication protocol, and the applications within a given domain donot need to be modified to implement a previously unsupported protocolin order for the domain to participate in the federation. The federationdoes not require a particular trust model; a set of entities can form afederation that conforms to the trust model that the participatingentities may have already established. Assertion translations occur onlyat the trust proxies and/or the trust brokers; the federationarchitecture acts as a front-end infrastructure that can be implementedwith minimal impact on an existing legacy system.

[0154] Federations allow users to seamlessly traverse different siteswithin a given federation in a single-sign-on fashion. Because of thetrust relationships established between the federation participants, oneparticipant is able to authenticate a user and then act as an issuingparty for that user. Other federation partners become relying parties,whereby they rely on information that is provided about the user by theissuing party without the direct involvement of the user.

[0155] It is important to note that while the present invention has beendescribed in the context of a fully functioning data processing system,those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the processes ofthe present invention are capable of being distributed in the form ofinstructions in a computer readable medium and a variety of other forms,regardless of the particular type of signal bearing media actually usedto carry out the distribution. Examples of computer readable mediainclude media such as EPROM, ROM, tape, paper, floppy disc, hard diskdrive, RAM, and CD-ROMs and transmission-type media, such as digital andanalog communications links.

[0156] A method is generally conceived to be a self-consistent sequenceof steps leading to a desired result. These steps require physicalmanipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily,these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capableof being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwisemanipulated. It is convenient at times, principally for reasons ofcommon usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, parameters,items, elements, objects, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or thelike. It should be noted, however, that all of these terms and similarterms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities andare merely convenient labels applied to these quantities.

[0157] The description of the present invention has been presented forpurposes of illustration but is not intended to be exhaustive or limitedto the disclosed embodiments. Many modifications and variations will beapparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. The embodiments werechosen to explain the principles of the invention and its practicalapplications and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art tounderstand the invention in order to implement various embodiments withvarious modifications as might be suited to other contemplated uses.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for authenticating a user within a dataprocessing system, the method comprising: generating an authenticationassertion for the user at a first trust proxy within a first domain;receiving at a system in a second domain a request from a clientoperated by the user to access a controlled resource within the seconddomain; sending the authentication assertion from the first domain to asecond trust proxy in the second domain; and validating theauthentication assertion at the second trust proxy in the second domain.2. The method of claim 1 further comprising: providing access to thecontrolled resource in response to a successful validation of theauthentication assertion at the second trust proxy.
 3. The method ofclaim 1 further comprising: determining within the first domain togenerate the authentication assertion for the user at the first trustproxy prior to receipt of the request for the controlled resource at thesystem in the second domain; and pushing the authentication assertionfrom the first domain to the second domain along with the request forthe controlled resource.
 4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:pulling the authentication assertion from the second trust proxy fromthe first trust proxy after receipt of the request for the controlledresource at the system in the second domain.
 5. The method of claim 1further comprising: establishing a trust relationship between the firsttrust proxy and the second trust proxy.
 6. The method of claim 1 furthercomprising: maintaining an indirect relationship between the first trustproxy and the second trust proxy through a trust broker.
 7. An apparatusfor authenticating a user within a data processing system, the apparatuscomprising: means for generating an authentication assertion for theuser at a first trust proxy within a first domain; means for receivingat a system in a second domain a request from a client operated by theuser to access a controlled resource within the second domain; means forsending the authentication assertion from the first domain to a secondtrust proxy in the second domain; and means for validating theauthentication assertion at the second trust proxy in the second domain.8. The apparatus of claim 7 further comprising: means for providingaccess to the controlled resource in response to a successful validationof the authentication assertion at the second trust proxy.
 9. Theapparatus of claim 7 further comprising: means for determining withinthe first domain to generate the authentication assertion for the userat the first trust proxy prior to receipt of the request for thecontrolled resource at the system in the second domain; and means forpushing the authentication assertion from the first domain to the seconddomain along with the request for the controlled resource.
 10. Theapparatus of claim 7 further comprising: means for pulling theauthentication assertion from the second trust proxy from the firsttrust proxy after receipt of the request for the controlled resource atthe system in the second domain.
 11. The apparatus of claim 7 furthercomprising: means for establishing a trust relationship between thefirst trust proxy and the second trust proxy.
 12. The apparatus of claim7 further comprising: means for maintaining an indirect relationshipbetween the first trust proxy and the second trust proxy through a trustbroker.
 13. A computer program product in a computer readable medium foruse in a data processing system for authenticating a user, the computerprogram product comprising: means for generating an authenticationassertion for the user at a first trust proxy within a first domain;means for receiving at a system in a second domain a request from aclient operated by the user to access a controlled resource within thesecond domain; means for sending the authentication assertion from thefirst domain to a second trust proxy in the second domain; and means forvalidating the authentication assertion at the second trust proxy in thesecond domain.
 14. The computer program product of claim 13 furthercomprising: means for providing access to the controlled resource inresponse to a successful validation of the authentication assertion atthe second trust proxy.
 15. The computer program product of claim 13further comprising: means for determining within the first domain togenerate the authentication assertion for the user at the first trustproxy prior to receipt of the request for the controlled resource at thesystem in the second domain; and means for pushing the authenticationassertion from the first domain to the second domain along with therequest for the controlled resource.
 16. The computer program product ofclaim 13 further comprising: means for pulling the authenticationassertion from the second trust proxy from the first trust proxy afterreceipt of the request for the controlled resource at the system in thesecond domain.
 17. The computer program product of claim 13 furthercomprising: means for establishing a trust relationship between thefirst trust proxy and the second trust proxy.
 18. The computer programproduct of claim 13 further comprising: means for maintaining anindirect relationship between the first trust proxy and the second trustproxy through a trust broker.